Basic Blog Tips

The Ultimate Guide to Google AdSense for Search on Your Blog

AdSense publishers are bloggers and webmasters who have been approved by the Google AdSense team to participate in the program and earn a cut from the ads placed on their blogs.

In a nutshell this is how the AdSense program works: Advertisers set up accounts in AdWords and Google will attempt to match up the ads and display them on the web pages with relevant content. The hope is that people will see an ad that interests them, and they will click through to the Advertiser's site and eventually invest in their products or services.

Face it, some people just don't like AdSense

Seems like a nice simple strategy were in the end, everyone is happy. The Advertiser gets business, Google makes money, and the AdSense publisher (you) get's a nice cut too. But the the concept of using AdSense as a method of monetizing your blog or site is met with some controversy. Here are some of the arguments I hear against using AdSense:

You are sending your traffic away from your blog

You can't make any “real” money with AdSense

You will make your site look “cheap”

My response to this negative feedback is summed up in a podcast that I recorded for teaching new bloggers how to launch their first blog. This episode is called Start Your Blogging Journey Today and one of the things I share is how you need to develop goals for your blog.

Let me explain how this relates to using AdSense or not.

Let's use this example, let's say the goal of your blog is to introduce your own products or services that you want people to buy. In that case you might not want to use AdSense. But let's face it, most of us aren't selling our own products when we start blogging.

We want to create our own products, and we might even be working on creating our own products, but we're just not there yet! In that case, there's nothing wrong with using AdSense to supplement our income until we do launch our own products.

Next, I know that a lot of people have failed to earn a good amount of money with AdSense. The primary reason people can't earn with AdSense is because they simply don't get enough traffic. It took me 2 years to get a payout from AdSense and it wasn't until I monetized my YouTube channel that I started getting regular payouts. The point here is that if I didn't have my AdSense account in the first place I never would have found out what a Gold Mine there is waiting for me on YouTube.

My rebuttal to AdSense making your site look “cheap” might is a little more controversial and opinionated.

Maybe it's just me but most of the bloggers that I see saying this are using Amazon (don't get me wrong I have nothing against Amazon, in fact I like Amazon) or they have those intrusive pop-ups on their blogs. I know this is a generalization, so with that being said, here are a couple of ways that you can use AdSense that can keep your blog out of the “cheap” looking category.

Tips for AdSense Placement with Style

Question: Do you know that I use AdSense on this blog? Probably not because if you're a regular reader of the blog, you probably will never see the AdSense blocks because of my secret placement strategy.

What is my secret placement strategy? I guess I kept you in suspense long enough but before I share it with you, I need to say a quick word about the death of AdSense for Feeds.

For those that don't know we used to be able to integrate AdSense with our RSS feeds powered by FeedBurner. Here's the statement from Google:

“AdSense for feeds is going away

On December 3rd, 2012, AdSense ads will stop serving on RSS feeds and you’ll no longer see feed units in your My ads tab.

FeedBurner URLs powered by Google will continue to function. As a result, it won’t be necessary to redirect your subscribers to different URLs or to take any other action on the account.”

AdSense for Search To the Rescue

AdSense for search is by no means something new, yet if you're currently using the default WordPress search then it is certainly is a “new” feature that you should consider adding to your blog. As your blog grows, you will find it more and more difficult to find your old posts to create internal links or simply to solve a problem that you get a question about if you stick with the WordPress search.

For example, those of us who have CommentLuv Premium should be sure to rotate the content in those five extra posts we get so we can leave a relevant link in comments when we're blog hopping. With a Google Custom Search, you'll find the right post every time. Even if it's a guest post! Try it and you'll see what I mean.

Check your Ad Performance and use the best ad units (based on size) on your top posts

Now we all know that you can find tons of strategies out there for finding the best ad placement, but this is the one I use and so far it has been working for me. The key is to keep testing the placement of ad until you find the sweet spot that works for you and your readers.

What's your strategy?

Are you using a Custom Google Search on your blog? Share some of your tips with us in the comments below.

I'm a blogger, podcaster, YouTuber and social media diva (or Social Media Veteran if you like the way that sounds better). True story: I started blogging by accident when I actually thought I was "subscribing" to my daughter Nicole's first blog. Since then I'm committed to helping others avoid all the mistakes I've made along the way. Get one-on-one coaching and exclusive perks when you join my community on Patreon!

Comments

Ileane, you throw an amazing idea! I never think about it to remove all ads from the website, and to put it only on more quality pages that are driving traffic / clicks from the search engine. (Ogranic traffic). Well, FeedBurner is dies, and many subscriber are not happy because of the end of the service.

However, the Google Adsense Search is one of the rare used Adsense feature by the web-masters. Only few web-masters have implemented it in their websites, and most of the newbies are not aware of it.

As far as I know, and can doubt too. They will also kill the service as soon as possible. There are many big competitors are now present in the market to enhance the feeds, and somehow! now big publishers are moving from the general Feedburner to advanced XML designed.

I am also using the advance XML for one of my tech blog, and successfully in the Pulse Reader for portable devices, and also in contact with Flipboard guys to include my stuff in their application on regular basis. Such stuff helps a lot in the growth of websites.

Now get back to the Google Search Adsense. I have implemented the Google Adsense in search back in 2009, but later removed. Even, now I am not using the search option in my blog 🙂

That’s really a great idea and i am also agree with Hamza point.I am having a doubt that if a new blogger want to earn money from good traffic blog without using adsense?( No banner adds,link adds because new blog).

I am a new blogger and i don’t have any ads on my website and i am not thinking about that also.But it is really a bad news that Google shut down the ads for feed burner that will definitely affect some bloggers.

I personally also think that the best way to earn money is not from Feed for Google adsense.You can use the customized search to make money from the Google adsense and it is quite good compared to Adsense for feeds.It actually makes your readers click on the ads more because when any reader search for something then he or she must need that information and he or she go for anything that comes out of the search result which is related to their topic.

This is a fantastic post. A few years back, I attempted to use Adsense as a way to monitize a college student static site I’d started with SBI. Needless to say it was an epic fail for the very reason that you stated above, lack of traffic.

Back then I was still going through my phases of learning how to really make this whole “making money online” work. I understood the concept behind it but really didn’t comprehend how to implement them in a way that would work for me.

Today, I have a crystal clear vision for how I want to monitize my blog. And as of right now, Adsense isn’t part of my plan. However, as I continue to grow in IM and build more sites, I may delve into Adsense to see how it works out for me (now that I’m getting a grip on the traffic side of things.)

Thanks for sharing your insight about Adsense. I’ve always admired Lisa’s transparency and her Adsense earning reports has always been one of the things that’s inspired me to stick it out to find that one thing works for me.

Oh, and I’ve seen your Adsense units and they are indeed very cleverly placed 😉

Did you turn on monetization on your YouTube channel yet? It will make the world of difference. And guess what, people are going to see those ads anyway so you might as well get your cut and make money from those ads too! Let me know if you need help with that.

Hey Ileane, great post, I don’t know about anybody else by my Adsense in feeds is pretty much useless, so I’m not too bothered about the service coming to an end, but the custom search box is something else and you know what? I’ve never used it until I just watched your little video there. Now I have one installed on my blog and it works a treat, you’re absolutely right, the WordPress search really does suck. Thanks again Ileane 🙂

Woot!! I feel really good when I help someone like you. Goodness knows all the help you have given me over the past few months!

Here’s another thing I did. I used the search to look up the word AdSense and find all the old posts on my blog that I can link this one too. Gee whiz! I had no idea that we talk about AdSense so much here on this blog – that’s because I never could find those post with the old WordPress search. lol! That should keep you busy for a couple of days. Let me know who you make out.

Hi Ileane,
Thanks for this post. I’ve been testing ads on my highest traffic posts but ultimately adsense works better for me in my softer niches — not my biz one. I love what you said about YouTube monetization though. That’s something I’m going to pay more attention to this year.
Philly Luv,
Lisa

Hi Ileane Mam,
Really Adsense for Feed is one of my best earning source rather than adsense for search. But It’s going away now 🙁 Anyway Hope I’ll start earning a decent amount through Adsense for search!
Thanks for sharing this piece of news!

Hi Hari, Did you start building your email list yet? Perhaps you should start converting your FeedBurner subscribers into your email list subscribers. That way you can send promotions and get more conversion with a service like AWeber. Let me know if you want to talk more about this. Thanks for your comment.

Sorry for the delay Ileane. I just now saw your reply, I haven’t started building email list, as I don’t have any money to have an account in Aweber and also a Self hosted WordPress blog. So I can’t start building email list 🙁

Great article Ileane, and you have a wonderful blog here. I’m curious to what your thoughts are on Adblock? My adsense earnings pretty much disapeared this year, I’m lucky if I make ten cents a day. When this happened I fairly lost interest in working my tail off to provide content. Clearly the 60 million adblock users have a role in this revenue drop. Or maybe not, some people deny it has any effect. What do you think?

I don’t worry too much about AdBlock because people who are tech savvy enough to use it aren’t going to click on ads anyway. When did you loose all of this income? I know that AdBlockers have been around since before I even started blogging. Good luck I hope you can recover your lost income levels.

Alright, I read the post and even got the point of using Adsense Custom Search for my blog or site. But for now, at least at this point, I have one question – Why am I yet getting very less CPC for my ads? Okay I am getting clicks, but the CPC being low just makes my adsense figures stay calm (hardly growing).

I know this question wouldn’t be appropriate here, but would love to get an answer though!

The cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount you earn each time a user clicks on your ad. The CPC for any ad is determined by the advertiser; some advertisers may be willing to pay more per click than others, depending on what they’re advertising.

What a great tutorial on AdSense best practices! You don’t get a lot of this kind of thorough and thoughtful information. There are so many ad services and you know what? You gotta make money! Like you said, sometimes you’re not selling a product but that doesn’t mean you can’t pick up a little extra cash from some ads. It just has to be tasteful and not detract for your reader’s experience. I think AdSense is pretty unobtrusive and they’re usually pretty well targeted. And to your other point: you need traffic first. Great tips, Ileane!

I think so many bloggers rush into monetizing their blog and then they quickly become disenchanted when they don’t see any earnings. This is why a lot of bloggers end up quitting and maybe it’s for the best that they do.
In the end we both know that it takes time to build up your content and of course your traffic to the point where it can pay off.

I use adsense on my blog cause i haven’t been really serious about getting a youtube channel.
And yes i use the adsense for search but it gets a ery little amount of pageviews.
Adsense would work for me definitely, even though i’m just a new blogger.

Hi Ileane, I have a question and I think this is probably an often issue with people new to blogging, I launched a blog and I have about 15 posts on it…could you give me any tips or advice on how to get approved by Google Adsense
I haven’t submitted my blog yet because I’m afraid it’s too early and the content and traffic on the site is low. Just want to say that this is a great post and I’m looking forward to new posts from you related to this topic

Hi Philip, As you know Google is constantly changing things, but the last I heard – your blog needs to be at least 6 months old before you can be considered for the AdSense program. It makes a lot of sense because Google wants to make sure you can be consistent for at least 6 months. I’m sure the advertisers were forcing them to put up some level of requirements.

I have used Adsense on my blogs before, but on my present blogs I don’t anymore. I kind of agree that adsense never looks too pretty on a blog, but I have to say that it’s very discrete on your here.

I agree that if you are saying that adsense makes your blog look cheap you might not want to use Amazon ads or pop ups either 🙂 Some people totally dislike pop ups. I remember having tried that a couple of years ago, and getting so many negative feedbacks that I opted against eventually.

I didn’t know about that YouTube adsense thing. Need to check that out!

Hi Sylviane,
I try to keep it classy around here that’s why I removed AdSense from the home page. I know that I have a really loyal community and most of my regular readers are bloggers who can’t be bothered clicking on AdSense ads anyway. So I had to come up with a plan to have my cake and eat it to. This I way I can still make some money with AdSense without everyone knowing (unless they take the time to read this post).

Google hasn’t shared the specific on what type of ads performed better on feeds. I’ll just share with you the same thing I mentioned to Raaj in an earlier comment (in case you missed it) The cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount you earn each time a user clicks on your ad. The CPC for any ad is determined by the advertiser; some advertisers may be willing to pay more per click than others, depending on what they’re advertising.

Hi Ileane and thank you for sharing this great information on how to use Adsense on your blog without it cheapening the look of your blog. I discovered Adsense by accident really. I tried monetizing a few of my videos and to my great surprise I started earning money from them, all for just pressing a button. But I have never added ads to my blog, but I will check out your secret method.

As for installing the custom search engine on my blog, I ended up getting someone on O’Desk to install it for me, although I then discovered a plugin that makes installation into the sidebar very simple, but without ads. I have also written a post on how to install the custom search engine and linked to your post and your great video tutorial as an alternative installation method to the plugin. Thank you for this great info.
Louise

I am willing to bet that the person from O’Desk used a method that is similar to the one that Lisa Irby shared in her video. I’m not saying that they used Lisa’s instructions but she is so popular that there is at least a slight chance that they did.

I just love having the Google Search on my blog. Thanks for sharing my video in your latest post.

I confess Ileane, I’m one of those that hate Adsense. I know, I know, it’s great for making some money but I find it annoying and I hate all those ads. Guess you can tell I’m not here for all the mula right!

But on the other hand, I appreciate how thorough you are with showing people how this is done. I mean I might be the lone ranger regarding adsense but so many people will love this post and what you’ve shared about seeing this up.

I was over at Louise’s post before heading here and she shared your video as well. Great job Ileane, wonderful share.

Hi there Adrienne! Great to get your feedback on this topic. I noticed that you don’t have AdSense on your blog. But I have to ask you – are you monetizing your YouTube channel? You have tons of views on some of your videos and that would be some guaranteed passive income for your. I hope you’re getting your piece of the pie over there on YouTube. Let me know.

Haha, Nice Ileane. What a great strategy to monetize a blog with Adsense without hurting the readers and showing too many ads. Really! It’s great to figure out which posts gets more organic traffic and place the Adsense ad only on that post.

And yes, That is a bad news for many bloggers earning thousands of dollars monthly with Adsense for feeds.

I think that anyone who is fortunate enough to earn a great deal from AdSense for feeds should put their thinking cap on and turn those FeedBurner subscribers into list subscribers. That is one situation where I would must certainly import all of those people who are subscribing by email into AWeber and start sending them more targeted offers.

Those guys are clever they don’t need suggestions from me but I’m #justsayin

I haven’t got an opportunity to try Google Adsense, but I would love to do it. I’ve recently bought a domain for creating my own blog, I hope I would soon start using adsense after receiving decent number of visitors.

hi -Ileane. another good post here – i think, Google doesn’t like RSS because it cuts down on the Display Ad inventory it can sell. Think about it… If you have to visit a site to read it, then you are providing Google an opportunity to monetize your visit through Adsense impressions/clicks. If you consume the same content in an RSS reader you don’t push as many (and now zero) ad impressions.

My gut says Adsense for feeds was cut because they didn’t want to incentivize content creators to use RSS. If Google can align their desires (increase Display Ad inventory) with that of the content creator (monetize said content), then its a win win (for Google). They’re kinda forcing this alignment by taking the option of Adsense for Feeds away.

Hira, I’m sorry but I have to disagree with you on this. Most people read feed in Google Reader. There is nothing stopping Google from showing ads there the same way they do in Gmail.

Personally I rarely use Google Reader but it wouldn’t bother me at all if they put ads on there.

One thing I really don’t want to see is ads on Google+ but when they are ready, there is nothing we can do to stop them. Just like Facebook, they used to keep the ads on the sidebars but not they are right inside the newsfeed and there is no way to avoid them.

Hello – Ileane, I’d like to add that I don’t thinkn Google cares any more how measurable their ad networks are. Meaning the days of using adwords to make a profit on just that traffic is heading out. Google is the new tv network media buy. How else do you justify $5 per on terms for products whose sale value is under $50? Your conversion rate would need to be 10%+ to break even.

I haven’t checked to see who else is using it, but one thing is for sure, I use it every single day now and it is saving me so much time that you would not believe! Keep in mind that over half of the content on this blog is written by wonderful guest authors like yourself and it was a huge struggle for me to find something when I needed. Now it’s all laid out right in front of me.

I could kick myself for not adding the Google custom search 2 years ago. 🙂

hello ileane,
i recently got the adsense approval and i am happy because i got it after 14-15 tries. so i don’t have much knowledge about adsense for feeds and all this/ but adsense is really rocking, though i got more than $1 cpc 1st day and now its low.
and you can check my traffic report, i have mentioned your site..because i have learnt a lot from you and this is the result. thanks for the guidance

You do a great job discussing the details and use cases of AdSense, couldn’t say it better myself on who should or shouldn’t use AdSense. I have been blogging for 4 years with my tech blog, I don’t create or sell my own services, AdSense is my passive way of monetizing my blog and I earn over $2500 per year from just AdSense. I never did earn much from AdSense for feeds, but my YouTube channel really started growing. I finally put in Google search with AdSense a few months ago but for my site it doesn’t seem to do much for me as of yet.

Hey Justin, it’s easy to see why your blog does so well with AdSense. You have so much great content and I’m sure you’re getting tons of traffic from Google search.

I came up with this strategy for selecting specific posts to show AdSense on just from carefully looking at my stats in AdSense, Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics. For a few months I had AdSense in the sidebar on every page of the blog but I started to notice that it only performed well on those pages that were getting lots of Google traffic because of the keywords I was ranking for. So it started to dawn on me that it would be better if I used my best performing ad unit – which happens to be 468 x 60 image ads – and add them to those posts I could see in GWT getting a lot of clicks. It took some time to sort it all out but now that I have the system in place I can really see the rewards.

October the best month ever for Adsense on this blog, which just goes to show, sometimes less IS more 🙂

I’m also shocked after reading this news, first they stopped API and now ads in feeds, what do you think should they completely close FeedBurner in near future? If so I’ve to find alternatives like MailChimp.

Hi Ileane!
This is a fantastic post. A few years back, I attempted to use Adsense as a way to monitize a college student static site I’d started with SBI. Needless to say it was an epic fail for the very reason that you stated above, lack of traffic.Back then I was still going through my phases of learning how to really make this whole “making money online” work. I understood the concept behind it but really didn’t comprehend how to implement them in a way that would work for me.

Today, I have a crystal clear vision for how I want to monitize my blog. And as of right now, Adsense isn’t part of my plan. However, as I continue to grow in IM and build more sites, I may delve into Adsense to see how it works out for me (now that I’m getting a grip on the traffic side of things.)
Thanks for sharing your insight about Adsense. I’ve always admired Lisa’s transparency and her Adsense earning reports has always been one of the things that’s inspired me to stick it out to find that one thing works for me.

I have a tech blog and i think you are already aware of it. The amount i earn from Adsense is very low. Can you please tell me what kind of posts can get me better earnings? Does that depend on the article we write?

Sergio, I think you are making a great choice by using Amazon. It looks like you are in the fitness niche and that is a great area that has a lot of expensive products for sale on Amazon. Thanks for your feedback on this!

Hi ileane
I have nay been using Adsense for a little while and the last couple of weeks have changed my ads to the 728. 90 and just put them at the end of my posts and have seen a considerable difference in my click through rate. I have been more interested in doing affiliate marketing but thought why I am setting that up would see what worked best with the ads then hopefully I can exchange them later with my own products later.

I know why Many people don’t like Google Adsense. Because They don’t know when Google will suspend there Google Adsense Account and They will not get what they have earned.. I Faced same problem so Know I don’t like it.

If you have solution of this problem I am very happy to use it again. But I know this will not happened again because there is no way I will get it back

Ileane, it wasn’t clear to me where in the code of my wordpress blog page to insert the code and how to make it so the search results page is only visible when someone types in a query on the search form. I am looking to use the existing search form from my blog and piggy back the adsense code into it. Let me know if you have specifics for that. Thank you much!

I am very impressed with the revenue from adsense, but until now, I am have never received money from adsense that fit with what I want because my adsense always banned by google with reasons that make no sense.

Hi Ileane,
This is a good idea for Adsense tips.
Thanks for your tips, I will share in my adsense group…

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About Ms. Ileane

I'm a blogger, podcaster, YouTuber and social media diva (or Social Media Veteran if you like the way that sounds better). True story: I started blogging by accident when I actually thought I was "subscribing" to my daughter Nicole's first blog. Since then I'm committed to helping others avoid all the mistakes I've made along the way. Get one-on-one coaching and exclusive perks when you join my community on Patreon!Read More…